


Occupied

by Deuterosis



Category: World Trigger (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Drinking & Talking, Drinking to Cope, Gen, Night Terrors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28020738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deuterosis/pseuds/Deuterosis
Summary: Reghi feels the jaws of Aftokrator in his dreams.
Kudos: 7
Collections: Banned Banned Together Bingo 2020, Banned Together Bingo 2020





	Occupied

**Author's Note:**

> There should be nothing very wrong with this work, but I want to have my beta look over this before I submit it for the main Bingo (and not rely on the big moderation queue). I've been aching to post new work, though, and couldn't contain myself. Hope this, what seems to be the first Galopoula work in the fandom (on Ao3?) is enjoyed!
> 
> Of course, all comments and critique of all kinds are welcomed on anything I write.

It's raining frogs.

Their mere touch is poison. They fall like darts into Galopoula from above.

There can be serpents that breathe black spikes, curled into the body like parasites.

Black holes into which people are swallowed and disappear.

But tonight it's frogs, tumbling into a reservoir made of many high walls. He's trapped in its grimy maze. Holds a hand on the mossy wall, seeking, turning with it, unable to watch both the sky and his feet for imminent amphibians. Begging, begging random forces to make the exit the next new thing he encounters. But deep down he knows. The worst part isn't the frogs or the holes but the way he understands he can run and trace the walls for years and he will never find a way out.

Reghindetz, on cue, woke in a pond of his own making, sheets and pillow soaking damp. He got up, not tired in the least. Stripped the bed. Sick of everything, simply threw the sheets down where they landed and left his section of the barracks.

His life had always been filled with battles and crumbling buildings, as it is for any soldier living on any Planetary Nation. But these consuming night sweats, the labyrinthe dungeons in his dreams, were relatively new.

They entered his life around five years ago.

So that his heart could settle down, he left the darkness where the soldiers slept to stand at the flow of cool air coming in from the window.

He couldn't help but look out and up, since from here the open sky was the world. Aftokrator is something he can't escape, even without caped footmen patrolling the streets or flagpoles shoved into Galopoula's ground. They don't need to be visible _here_ because their presence hangs in the sky: a constant reminder of The God Country.

The enormous nation that owned them all is bright in the black and leaves the faintest shine on his red-shot eye, like a dim sun. He could rub and pick at it, but it isn't an eyelash, in the way he can't simply pluck it out.

“Reghi, are you still up?”

The question came from Ratarykov, a conscript Reghi's age, returning from the restroom. He shouldn't even be in the same building as Reghi, much less the same sleeping quarters. It was his shit fortune too - yet if he resented it or had nightmares about it even half as much as Reghi, you would never know.

“You should try to get some sleep. We're leaving in the morning.”

He made it almost to the door before turning back to Reghi's unmoving silhouette. Reghi could feel him pause, and the weight of his eyes.

“...Having trouble sleeping?”

* * *

There was a kitchen where the soldiers, trained in the art of feeding themselves, made their meals in vast pots and usually ate them in a vast room. Reghi used to find it cramped and hot, until being here almost alone made him realize it could as easily be oversized and cold.

Ratarykov poured them both glasses of white wine. He has his own personal slender bottle, part of a prize for excellence in the last mission forced on Galopoula. The people in charge of these rewards only gave these kinds of things to soldiers they could be sure wouldn't misuse them, reliable ones who didn't show temper on the battlefield.

As usual when Reghindetz watched this particular cohort set things down, he noted something odd. With the glasses filled, the bottle went in the middle of the table, and the glasses each halfway between the bottle and the two sitting soldiers, in a line.

Given the freedom Rata will always arrange anything in formation, if he can. Now that Reghi had already noticed, his eyes kept watching for instances, almost to confirm he wasn't hallucinating the whole thing. He'd been tempted at times to ask “Any particular reason?” but now that he had the chance, he no longer felt like talking. White wine was Rata's favorite but even he didn't drain his glass with the gusto of Reghindetz.

They drank largely in silence: Ratarykov ready to hear Reghi's complaints but offering no subjects of his own, as if he could tell that small talk wouldn't help. It took a second generous serving to let the pressure verbally loose.

“Why do we put up with this shit?”

“With what?”

“Aftokrator.”

“Because they've conquered us and seized control of our Nation.”

“Tell me something I don't know!” They _all_ had gone through the same things, the same kind of humiliation, and so Reghi couldn't understand how everyone else could be so _calm._

“There's nothing more to say.” He rested his drink with the care of someone who became more precise to counteract a drink. The straight line didn't remain, but Reghi looked and the fuller glass was still as far away from the bottle as his own. “We all feel how unfair it is, but dwelling on it endlessly won't make things better. We simply have to bear it.”

“That is what I'm asking,” Reghi said, stretching out the sentence so the meaning was clear. “ _Why_ do we have to bear it?”

“There's no choice.” Ratarykov's infinite patience had become irritating past Reghi's curtain of wine. “No one can stand up to Aftokrator.”

“ _They_ did.”

With that fact noted, he finally saw a hint of true sorrow draw his drinking companion's eyelids slightly down.

“We aren't them, Reghi.”

Regindetz didn't respond. He was finally becoming too tired to argue. But Galopoula had a superb, renowned military, despite its size - that was surely why Aftokrator seized it as a vassal. And Miden had only even had Trigger technology for about a fourth of Reghi's life. What luck do they have that no other target of Afto gets to enjoy?

Now that his vessel was drained, Ratarykov took it to the barracks' sink, rinsing it and taking a quick, plain draught. “Don't forget to drink a glass of water before you go back to bed.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“I'm serious. You don't want a drinking headache in the morning.”

“Nobody wants that.”

He set his glass with the other dishes, sealed his bottle, and gave his suffering cohort another long look before he left. “Well... good night.”

After Rata had gone back to bed, Reghi picked up his own, not yet empty glass, and first walked to a window with it. Aftokrator would glare at him again from these gaps on his way back. This he well knew. He stared back for a brief moment, then chucked the alcohol at its distant image in useless protest, the only type available to him.

A waste of a few swallows of perfectly good wine, true. But being one of Aftokrator's many errand monkeys is a waste of a perfectly good life.

**Author's Note:**

> Their names are so long.
> 
> I wonder if I've laid it on too thick with Rata. I sort of made an assumption when I saw in his Likes “things that are evenly spaced apart”. It could easily just be a quirk/preference, but I thought it would be interesting if it was a mild compulsion.


End file.
